American Himalayan Foundation

What We Do

Care to every corner

Reaching vulnerable mountain communities

Access to healthcare is inconsistent in rural and mountain communities across the Himalaya. Government clinics exist but can be many days travel over tough terrain—and the health workers assigned to them may find the living conditions so harsh they are often absent. Even if the doctor is in, the expense can be out of reach.

To remedy this, with our local partners AHF builds community health centers and clinics, and funds health workers and medical supplies in underserved areas from the high plateau of Tibet to Upper Mustang.

AHF has joined with LoGyalpo Jigme Foundation to give the Lobas of Upper Mustang year-round healthcare, augmenting seven local health posts with workers, medicine, and even holding “Little Loba Dental Camp”. In addition to ongoing expenses, we fund much-needed equipment in the posts.

Even for Tibetans living in the refugee camps, seeing a doctor is often not possible because of the cost. We help cover medicine and doctor visits, to bring a measure of comfort to the poorest elders and youngsters. And malaria and typhoid testing kits are low-cost lifesavers in a remote Tibetan settlement of northern India, allowing residents to detect the deadly diseases in time to get treatment.

Water is life (but only if it's clean)

For the nomads living on the high plateau of Tibet, the task of collecting water usually falls to women and girls, and the water from the rivers that crisscross the roof of the world is often, unfortunately, muddy and contaminated. So we help them build pipelines to bring fresh, clean water directly from high in the mountains, freeing up time for the girls to go to school. And health workers hold talks about hygiene and disease prevention with nomad communities who had never heard of germs before.

“The villagers are very enthusiastic about the health talks. They come to us with tears in their eyes, saying no one ever told us these things before.”
– AHF partner in Tibet

Tibetan settlements, scattered across Nepal and India, don’t always have easy access to fresh water either. We help them build clean drinking water systems—or sometimes rebuild them, like in the village of Syabru after it was decimated by the 2015 earthquake.